Skip to main content

Drying Your Eyeballs on a Towel and Becoming a Fan of Fiddlehead Ferns

On one of the days in which I accidentally dried my eyeball with a towel after my shower the pain started a thought process about hotel towels and hotel rooms that led to a sudden urge to create a poem. Energy levels being high I also decided it HAD to be a palindrome.

I first became excited by the form when I read Caroline Bird's 'Drawn Onward'. If you love poetry you have probably already read it, but if for any reason you haven't then I highly recommend you make it one of the next poems you read.

I was ridiculously pleased with myself when I created a short palindromic poem about fiddlehead ferns in summer 2020 and sort of thought it would be the only one I wrote so imagine how pleased I was to create a second! I hope it will find a home of its own, but in the meantime here's my 'fiddlehead ferns' kindly homed by 192 Poets Directory:

 

We Few Deified We Few

 

Wanting us to feast differently   

I filled a basket with fiddlehead ferns

right to the brim for you:

ostrich fern, lady fern, bracken.

Tossing their bitterness

with garlic and rock salt.

 

Look, I tell you, I have foraged

this taste for you.

 

I let lemon zest fall on

those curled caterpillars

amongst the charred green-brown leaves.

 

We do not mention

that vague muddiness on our tongues.

We do not mention,

amongst the charred green-brown leaves,

those curled caterpillars.

 

I let lemon zest fall on

this taste for you.

 

Look, I tell you, I have foraged.

 

With garlic and rock salt

tossing their bitterness;

ostrich fern, lady fern, bracken.

 

Right to the brim for you

I filled a basket with fiddlehead ferns;

wanting us to feast differently.

 

Video reading of We Few Deified We Few

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is He Puffin or Is He Vulture? (Episode 39)

  Singing as the Darkness Lifts, Episode 39 Is He Puffin or Is He Vulture? PodBean Link for those who like to listen   This morning the smell of cut grass is in the air, slightly hayed by yesterday’s sunshine and today’s gentle misty drizzle.   This week’s photo had to be ‘Ronnie Jumping for Joy at The Great Orme’. Not just because I love that orme, not just because it is the picture for June on the #LookThere calendar, but because of the alt text suggestion I got when I was preparing to share it on social media to welcome in the new month. This alt text has to be one of my absolute favourites... “May be an image of puffin and vulture.” It made me laugh each time I thought of it and wondered which one of those Ronnie was! In this Word document alt text says it’s a stuffed animal in the air, which makes me love the alternative version that appeared the other day even more.   I love to find humour in things. I find i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Singing as the Darkness Lifts 13/11/2023 (Episode 11)

  Singing as the darkness lifts 13/11/2023 PETRICHOR   Me and my brother on a farm holiday when we were little and me and my brother at Bletchley Park more recently.   I am a poet who does not like the smell of petrichor. Last night it rained enough to make puddles on the path, so the smell is not in the air. This pleases me. Instead there is a refreshing, just there, note of herb and I learn that fruit flies too are sensitive to that smell of rain on dry ground.   When I was at school one of the projects involved counting fruit flies. I do not remember the exact logistics, but think it had something to do with tabling the numbers with different markings on their rears. My turn one lunch time resulted in me wracking my brains for the knowledge I needed when I dropped the lid of the fruit fly housing and some of the numbers headed for the freedom of the laboratory ceiling. I didn’t let my group down, but I do think a fruit fly flew up my nose during the proc...
2 comments
Read more

'Sisters at the Snooker' (Episode 24)

Singing as the Darkness Lifts 19/02/2024 Episode 24 Podbean Link for those who like to listen This morning the air seems to smell of egg nog. Inquisitive, I sniff again. Later, I realise the scent is lifted from my body and is from my shower gel. I wonder how many scents are mingling around me. Alt Text for today’s photo tells us this is: “Two women taking a selfie”, but as me and my sister like to see it this is... “Sisters settling in for the semi-finals at the 2024 Welsh Open”. This was my first time at the snooker and I remember learning most of what I know about it from watching it at my granddad’s house when I was young. It was in black and white in those days and frequently viewed without sound, but I remember the joy of a 147 break and the peaceful way my grandad watched it. When we were walking to the venue, I said to Katie, “I’m really looking forward to seeing a 147.” And she replied, “That’s not gonna happen sis. It’s very, very rare. Although it wo...
Post a Comment
Read more